[grandinj]

Your drugs are expensive because the rest of the world freeloads by artificially restricting the selling price of drugs, leaving the US to bear the brunt of the R&D costs.

Your FDA and legal system pushes up the price of medical devices.

But yes, you have the most unnecessarily complex and convoluted health care administrative structure known to man.

[lilsunnybee]

Often times there are very good reasons for those restrictions, especially when pricing for a drug deviates dramatically from actual R&D / operations costs. Take the case of orphan drugs:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2013/10/05/are-300...

Besides runaway pricing, many drugs for which companies are given patents and sole-distribution rights, have already been on the market for decades, just never with proper FDA approval. There are other tax incentives and grants provided as well for reintroducing "new" drugs that were already on the market.

http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/pharma-windfall/2013/no...

Makena scandal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KV_Pharmaceutical#Makena_pricin...

Many many other drugs with runaway pricing as well:

Armodafinil and Sodium Oxybate for instance

Europeans decide to enforce price controls? Can't say i blame them.